Revelation, March 1829 [D&C 5]

pages & then shalt thou stop for a
season even untill I command thee again. then thou mayest translate

To produce a text from one written in another language; in JS’s usage, most often through divine means. JS considered the ability to translate to be a gift of the spirit, like the gift of interpreting tongues. He recounted that he translated “reformed Egyptian...

& now because I foresee the lieing in wait to destroy thee yea I foresee
that if my Servant humbleth not himself & receive a witness from my hand that
he will fall into transgression & there are many that lie in wait to
destroy thee off the face of the Earth & for this cause that thy Days may be
prolounged I have given unto you these Commandments

Generally, a divine mandate that church members were expected to obey; more specifically, a text dictated by JS in the first-person voice of Deity that served to communicate knowledge and instruction to JS and his followers. Occasionally, other inspired texts...

Yea for this Cause have I said
stop & stand still untill I Command thee & I will provide means
whereby thou mayest Accomplish the thing I have Commanded thee15

Among the “means” that would soon be
provided to enable JS to continue the translation of the Book of Mormon
was the arrival in early
April of Oliver Cowdery, who would serve as JS’s scribe. Lucy Mack
Smith later recalled that JS keenly felt the need for clerical assistance
and “accordingly 2 or 3 days before the arrival of Oliver . . . called upon His
Heavenly Father for the promised assistance and was informed that the same should be
forthcoming in a few days.” (Lucy Mack Smith, History, 1844–1845, bk.
8, [4].)

& if thou art faithful in Keeping my Commandments
ye shall be lifted up at the last Day [p. 3]

pages & then shalt thou stop for a
season even untill I command thee again. then thou mayest translate

To produce a text from one written in another language; in JS’s usage, most often through divine means. JS considered the ability to translate to be a gift of the spirit, like the gift of interpreting tongues. He recounted that he translated “reformed Egyptian...

& now because I foresee the lieing in wait to destroy thee yea I foresee
that if my Servant humbleth not himself & receive a witness from my hand that
he will fall into transgression & there are many that lie in wait to
destroy thee off the face of the Earth & for this cause that thy Days may be
prolounged I have given unto you these Commandments

Generally, a divine mandate that church members were expected to obey; more specifically, a text dictated by JS in the first-person voice of Deity that served to communicate knowledge and instruction to JS and his followers. Occasionally, other inspired texts...

Yea for this Cause have I said
stop & stand still untill I Command thee & I will provide means
whereby thou mayest Accomplish the thing I have Commanded thee15

Among the “means” that would soon be
provided to enable JS to continue the translation of the Book of Mormon
was the arrival in early
April of Oliver Cowdery, who would serve as JS’s scribe. Lucy Mack
Smith later recalled that JS keenly felt the need for clerical assistance
and “accordingly 2 or 3 days before the arrival of Oliver . . . called upon His
Heavenly Father for the promised assistance and was informed that the same should be
forthcoming in a few days.” (Lucy Mack Smith, History, 1844–1845, bk.
8, [4].)

& if thou art faithful in Keeping my Commandments
ye shall be lifted up at the last Day [p. 3]

18 May 1783–10 July 1875. Farmer. Born at Easton, Albany Co., New York. Son of Nathan Harris and Rhoda Lapham. Moved with parents to area of Swift’s landing (later in Palmyra), Ontario Co., New York, 1793. Married first his first cousin Lucy Harris, 27 Mar...

A record engraved on gold plates, which JS translated and published as the Book of Mormon. The text explained that the plates were an abridgement of other ancient records and were written by an American prophet named Mormon and his son Moroni. The plates ...

Located in northeastern Pennsylvania. Area settled, by 1787. Organized 1809. Population in 1830 about 340. Population in 1840 about 520. Contained Harmony village (no longer in existence). Josiah Stowell hired JS to help look for treasure in area, Oct. 1825...

JS had last seen Harris in the summer of 1828 when he traveled to New York

Located in northeast region of U.S. Area settled by Dutch traders, 1620s; later governed by Britain, 1664–1776. Admitted to U.S. as state, 1788. Population in 1810 about 1,000,000; in 1820 about 1,400,000; in 1830 about 1,900,000; and in 1840 about 2,400,...

To produce a text from one written in another language; in JS’s usage, most often through divine means. JS considered the ability to translate to be a gift of the spirit, like the gift of interpreting tongues. He recounted that he translated “reformed Egyptian...

later referred to as “the Book of
Lehi.” JS returned to Harmony disheartened and without Harris, his scribe. He did
not “go immediately to translating, but went to laboring” on the small farm he had
purchased from his father-in-law, Isaac Hale

21 Mar. 1763–11 Jan. 1839. Farmer, hunter, innkeeper. Born in Waterbury, New Haven Co., Connecticut. Son of Reuben Hale and Diantha Ward. Member of Methodist church. Moved to Wells, Albany Co., New York (later in Rutland Co., Vermont), ca. 1771, to live with...

18 May 1783–10 July 1875. Farmer. Born at Easton, Albany Co., New York. Son of Nathan Harris and Rhoda Lapham. Moved with parents to area of Swift’s landing (later in Palmyra), Ontario Co., New York, 1793. Married first his first cousin Lucy Harris, 27 Mar...

later reported that “in March the People Rose up & united against the
Work[,] gathering testimey [testimony] against the Plates.” As Harris recalled, these
persecutors threatened a lawsuit and “Said they had testamoney Enough & if
I did not Put
Joseph in Jail & his
father

12 July 1771–14 Sept. 1840. Cooper, farmer, teacher, merchant. Born at Topsfield, Essex Co., Massachusetts. Son of Asael Smith and Mary Duty. Nominal member of Congregationalist church at Topsfield. Married to Lucy Mack by Seth Austin, 24 Jan. 1796, at Tunbridge...

(also named Lucy) played a central role in
generating this opposition to JS’s work: she “mounted her horse
[and] flew through the neighborhood like a dark
spirit from house to house making diligent enquiry at every house for miles
where she had the least hope of gleaning anything that would subserve her
purpose.” Lucy Harris sought to prove that JS had pretended to have gold plates
“for the express purpose of obtaining money from those who might be so
credulous as to believe him . . . [and] entered
a complaint before a magistrate at
Lyons [New
York].”4

It was
in the midst of these difficulties that Harris traveled to
Harmony

Located in northeastern Pennsylvania. Area settled, by 1787. Organized 1809. Population in 1830 about 340. Population in 1840 about 520. Contained Harmony village (no longer in existence). Josiah Stowell hired JS to help look for treasure in area, Oct. 1825...

to see
JS. According to the revelation’s heading in the 1833
Book of
Commandments, “Martin desired of the Lord to know whether Joseph had, in
his possession, the record of the
Nephites

A term used in the Book of Mormon to refer to the descendants and followers of Nephi, as well as those who later identified themselves as Nephites for religious reasons. According to JS and the Book of Mormon, Lehi and Sariah, Nephi’s parents, and their family...

21 Mar. 1763–11 Jan. 1839. Farmer, hunter, innkeeper. Born in Waterbury, New Haven Co., Connecticut. Son of Reuben Hale and Diantha Ward. Member of Methodist church. Moved to Wells, Albany Co., New York (later in Rutland Co., Vermont), ca. 1771, to live with...

, reported that Harris hoped to gain a “greater witness” of the
plates.6

Isaac Hale, Affidavit, Harmony, PA, 20 Mar. 1834,
in “Mormonism,” Susquehanna Register, and Northern Pennsylvanian
(Montrose, PA), 1 May 1834, [1].
Martin
Harris later stated that a man named Rogers
accompanied him on the journey to
Harmony.
Unknown to Harris at the time, Rogers had plotted with Martin’s wife,
Lucy
Harris, that he would cut off “the covering of the Plates” with his knife
when JS displayed them. No other known source mentions
this scheme or provides evidence that Rogers followed through with it. Rogers
cannot be positively identified, though there was a Joseph Rogers living near
Manchester in
Phelpstown who later gave a negative account about the
Smiths and claimed to have affidavits demonstrating that they were thieves.
(“Testamoney of Martin
Harris,” 4 Sept. 1870, [4], Edward Stevenson, Collection, CHL;
“Joseph Rogers’
Statement,” in Naked Truths about Mormonism [Oakland, CA], Apr.
1888, 1.)

18 May 1783–10 July 1875. Farmer. Born at Easton, Albany Co., New York. Son of Nathan Harris and Rhoda Lapham. Moved with parents to area of Swift’s landing (later in Palmyra), Ontario Co., New York, 1793. Married first his first cousin Lucy Harris, 27 Mar...

’s concerns, the revelation spoke of his desiring
“a witness that my Servant
Joseph hath got the things which he hath
testified,” but stated that JS could not show them to anyone. Harris was then
told that God would show the plates to three witnesses who would publicly
testify of what they saw, and he was promised he would be one of those
witnesses, “if he will go out & bow down before me & humble himself in
mighty prayer & faith in the sincerity of his heart.” The revelation also
warned JS that “there are many that lie in wait to destroy thee,” perhaps an
allusion to those preparing a lawsuit against JS, and declared that “the Swoard
of Justice” hung above the people of that generation and that if they would
“persist in the hardness of ther hearts the time cometh that it must fall upon
them.” The revelation asserted that the book’s authenticity would be evidenced
primarily by its message, not by the plates. If the people would not believe
the translation, they also would not believe even if JS “could show them all
things.”

18 May 1783–10 July 1875. Farmer. Born at Easton, Albany Co., New York. Son of Nathan Harris and Rhoda Lapham. Moved with parents to area of Swift’s landing (later in Palmyra), Ontario Co., New York, 1793. Married first his first cousin Lucy Harris, 27 Mar...

was not allowed to view the plates during his
March 1829 visit to
Harmony

Located in northeastern Pennsylvania. Area settled, by 1787. Organized 1809. Population in 1830 about 340. Population in 1840 about 520. Contained Harmony village (no longer in existence). Josiah Stowell hired JS to help look for treasure in area, Oct. 1825...

, the
revelation allayed his doubts. William S. Sayre, a fellow
traveler with Harris on the stagecoach back to
Palmyra

Known as Swift’s Landing and Tolland before being renamed Palmyra, 1796. Incorporated, Mar. 1827, two years after completion of adjacent Erie Canal. Population in 1820 about 3,700. Joseph Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith family lived in village briefly, beginning ...

, recalled
that one of the other passengers “did not believe that
Joe
[JS] was capable of composing any thing,
but that Joe’s
father

12 July 1771–14 Sept. 1840. Cooper, farmer, teacher, merchant. Born at Topsfield, Essex Co., Massachusetts. Son of Asael Smith and Mary Duty. Nominal member of Congregationalist church at Topsfield. Married to Lucy Mack by Seth Austin, 24 Jan. 1796, at Tunbridge...

was a man of some education & cunning
& shr[e]wd . . . & was duping others
through Joe, & that they were cheating” Harris out of his money. Harris,
however, told his fellow passengers that JS “had found a gold bible & stone
in which he look’d & was thereby enabled to translate the very ancient
chara[c]ters.” He further explained that JS had
“read to him a good deal of the bible & he [Harris] repeated to those in the stage verse after verse
of what Smith had read to him.”7

William S. Sayre, Bainbridge, NY,
to James T. Cobb, [Salt Lake City, Utah Territory], 31 Aug. 1878, in
Theodore Albert Schroeder Papers. Although
Sayre called his fellow passenger “Richards,” he admitted
uncertainty about the name, and the details of Sayre’s account—which describes
the man as the
Palmyra resident
who later financed the Book of Mormon—leave little doubt it was
Martin
Harris. Sayre dated the incident to April
1829, and Harris was known to be traveling from
Harmony to
Palmyra in March. The claim that
JS was incapable of composing anything and was
being assisted by his
father was echoed in Harris’s statement, quoted
previously, that those involved in the lawsuit wanted to put both JS and his
father in jail for deception.

remembered a report that three witnesses each claimed JS had
admitted to fabricating the story of the plates to deceive Martin Harris. But
Harris, taking the stand, testified that JS had not defrauded him and that
Harris had put only “$50 into his hands . . . for the purpose of doing the work
of the Lord.”8

Lucy
Mack Smith, History, 1844–1845,
bk. 8, [7].
Lucy
Mack Smith wrote that the first witness claimed the box in which
JS kept the plates was filled with sand and that
JS told him it was “to deceive the people,” the second witness claimed JS said
the box was filled with lead, and the third witness declared the box was empty
but was used to get
Martin
Harris’s money. (Lucy Mack Smith, History, 1844–1845,
bk. 8,
[6]–[7].)

21 Mar. 1763–11 Jan. 1839. Farmer, hunter, innkeeper. Born in Waterbury, New Haven Co., Connecticut. Son of Reuben Hale and Diantha Ward. Member of Methodist church. Moved to Wells, Albany Co., New York (later in Rutland Co., Vermont), ca. 1771, to live with...

18 May 1783–10 July 1875. Farmer. Born at Easton, Albany Co., New York. Son of Nathan Harris and Rhoda Lapham. Moved with parents to area of Swift’s landing (later in Palmyra), Ontario Co., New York, 1793. Married first his first cousin Lucy Harris, 27 Mar...

3 Oct. 1806–3 Mar. 1850. Clerk, teacher, justice of the peace, lawyer, newspaper editor. Born at Wells, Rutland Co., Vermont. Son of William Cowdery and Rebecca Fuller. Raised Congregationalist. Moved to western New York and clerked at a store, ca. 1825–1828...

Located in northeastern Pennsylvania. Area settled, by 1787. Organized 1809. Population in 1830 about 340. Population in 1840 about 520. Contained Harmony village (no longer in existence). Josiah Stowell hired JS to help look for treasure in area, Oct. 1825...

3 Oct. 1806–3 Mar. 1850. Clerk, teacher, justice of the peace, lawyer, newspaper editor. Born at Wells, Rutland Co., Vermont. Son of William Cowdery and Rebecca Fuller. Raised Congregationalist. Moved to western New York and clerked at a store, ca. 1825–1828...

on the verso of the final
leaf reads “Respecting translating the | Book of mormon”. Other writing,
consisting of unrelated lists of names and mathematical calculations, in both
pencil and ink by an unidentified scribe appears to have been created circa
mid-1830.

This document
is part of a collection of revelations found within the
Newel K. Whitney

Papers, which comprise three
different groups of material: early Mormon material, largely relating to the
finances of the church; Newel K. Whitney personal papers; and Whitney family
papers. The Whitney papers include nineteen manuscript revelations. The dates
of the majority of the revelations indicate that Whitney, likely in his role as
bishop of the church, received and retained copies of revelations
from mid-1831 through late
1833. Because the featured text was dictated well before Whitney joined
the church, it is unknown when or under what circumstances Whitney acquired
this manuscript.

Papers, following the death
of Whitney, his daughter Mary Jane, who married
Isaac Groo, obtained possession of the papers. The Brigham
Young University library, Provo, Utah, acquired these papers from descendants
of Mary Jane and Isaac Groo between 1969 and 1974.

All extant
versions of this revelation that bear a date have it as
March 1829. Although the featured version gives
no explicit date of creation,
Oliver
Cowdery

3 Oct. 1806–3 Mar. 1850. Clerk, teacher, justice of the peace, lawyer, newspaper editor. Born at Wells, Rutland Co., Vermont. Son of William Cowdery and Rebecca Fuller. Raised Congregationalist. Moved to western New York and clerked at a store, ca. 1825–1828...

’s handwriting provides a clue to the dating. This document
appears to provide one of only two known samples of Cowdery’s early stylized or
formalized handwriting. The other is a 6 April
1829 agreement between
JS and his father-in-law,
Isaac
Hale

21 Mar. 1763–11 Jan. 1839. Farmer, hunter, innkeeper. Born in Waterbury, New Haven Co., Connecticut. Son of Reuben Hale and Diantha Ward. Member of Methodist church. Moved to Wells, Albany Co., New York (later in Rutland Co., Vermont), ca. 1771, to live with...

Once Cowdery began taking dictation from
JS of the Book of Mormon translation, his handwriting evolved into the style
that characterized his handwriting for the remainder of his life. If, as the
similarities of handwriting style would suggest, this copy of the revelation
was created around the same time as the above-mentioned agreement, the document
would have been created circa April 1829. This
creation date would make this the earliest extant version of any revelation
text dictated by JS.